To Travel is to Possess the World: If you want to go somewhere obscure...

October 28, 2011

I have a new favorite place in the world. Budapest. Hands down, my favorite place so far. At the beginning of the semester, a group went to Budapest but because I wanted to get acquainted with Vienna, I opted out. Oh I regretted it so much when they came back because I had no idea if I was ever going to be able to go. Imagine my joy when Amanda mentioned going to Budapest the last weekend of October! So, today, we left early and got here around eleven. I walked out of the train station and was a little hesitant at first, but we'd been warned from the previous group that the train station was pretty ghetto and not to judge the city based on that part. I'd also seen pictures so I knew it was beautiful.
We found our hostel which is this cute little place called, "Home to Home" and run by this guy named Jeno. He was really great and told us the places to see and how to walk around the city to see everything.
It was great, because we knew a few things we wanted to see, but not a ton. That was great because our schedule wasn't packed and everything was pretty relaxed. Amanda and Annisija wanted to see the opera house, and maybe an opera because they are music majors and eat that kind of thing up, so on the way there, we stopped by St. Stephens Basilica (the St. Stephens in Vienna is it's twin :) different structures, but same saint). St. Stephens is MASSIVE. I'm not kidding, it's ginormous. It also houses the holy right hand of St. Stephen. Is mummified and in a glass box, but a human hand nonetheless. Gross.
We went over to the opera house to get tickets for the show, but ended up skipping out because the only tickets we could afford were located behind poles which equaled no line of sight for us. Let me tell you how glad I am that we didn't do the opera because we would have never gotten to the castle on the hill called the Fisherman's Bastion and found the most amazing restaurant I have ever been to.
Amanda bought a book on Budapest, so that was the first thing we consulted when looking for a place to eat. We decided on one called Marv Anymenyasszony. Please never ask me to pronounce that. We walked around for about fifteen minutes in ghettoville to a little hinterhaus. We didn't have any reservations, but they let us in anyway. It all worked out perfectly. They had one table open, and it had five seats. Perfect. We decided on our dishes and since I had never tried duck before, I thought it was about time. The entire time we are there, a live band is playing in the corner, there were cultural dancers and the atmosphere was amazing! It was a super fun, hometown feel. The place was packed and I think every single person had a reservation except for us. My favorite observation was that I could tell it was almost purely a local place. I felt like the Hungarians were so happy to have us there, and even happier to share their culture with us. I am still amazed that we happened to stumble apon this place. We stayed for two and a half hours, and were still the first people to leave. We we're the last ones there and the first ones to leave. I guess that is just American culture.
Budapest was amazing and I feel like I definitely got the cultural experience I was hoping for. If you ever want to go to a really cool, obscure place that no one really knows much about, go to Budapest. They also have wonderful pastries called "chimney cakes" that I can't seem to get enough of...

St. Stephens massiveness

See those ants by the door? Those are people. Be amazed.

I think I'm obsessed with bridges... Beautiful at night.

Fisherman's Bastion aka: Budapest castle

Live band. This guy was the greatest. Doesn't he look like a Hungarian cartoon??

The three above pictures are of the restaurant we ate at. I didn't get pictures of my food, unfortunately. Just trust me when I say that it was divine!